Session 11a (Stars of Io)
The group rescues Nimozaren; visits Harkenwold. Goes to a giantish-village. Meets a Colbalt Dragon and Slays a white dragon. Status *DM: Bryce *Players: **Raymond - Naiveral ***XP: 7000 **Ryan - Wuelasselin ***XP: 7000 **Paul - Gnarlimb ***XP: 7000 **Shelley - Zem ***XP: 7000 *Date: August 22, 2012 *Location: Ryan's Media Room Summary Rescue the Radishman Zem, Naiv and Gnarl jump from the enchanted window of Moya and onto Nimozaren's tower. Zem sneaks all the way down to the basement and back gathering information. Nimozaren is being held captive, and the tower is guarded by a few Warforged and a Platonian official. Zem knocks out the official, and Gnarl and Naiv begin blockading the front door with book cases. The Warforged come to see what is going on, and sound a klaxon when they see the intruders. Their alarm is cut short, and Nimozaren is rescued. He is less coherent than usual. Gnarl exams the documents on the official's desk before they leave, and approves all of the requests with a stamp. He also takes the official's newspaper and a purple cloak that appears to be something like his uniform. The party goes back up to Moya with Nimozaren and fly away, but not before Fallcrest makes a parting shot with some kind of powerful lightning device. Searching for Clues With little information from Nimo, they travel to humble Harkenwold. They run into another purple-cloaked official, but he does not recognize them. He escorts them to the mayor as they request, but the mayor is tight lipped. >>> the official leaves, or somebody takes him outside or something? <<< The mayor tells the party about some giant attacks interrupting trade to the North. He also explains that the purple cloaked officials are part of Goldweaver's imperial forces. The party abducts the official and start making there way north along the trade route. They see some of Goldweaver's forces along the road, but avoid them. They eventually drop the official off in the tundra, taking his cloak as well. They find trail off of the trade route that heads toward a hemisphere of swirling snow. They leave Moya and Nimo to venture within, following along a giant's trail, hopefully toward their village. They come to a frozen lake, where three giants and their pet wolves challenge them to battle, beyond them is a village in the middle of the lake. Battle With Giants Wuel's fireball melts the ice below it, and the white wolf falls into the freezing water. The grey wolves knock Gnarl unconcious, but when they leave for their next target, Cyanelle crawls out from Gnarl's coat and pours a potion into his mouth. One of the giants drops his totem on the ice, and it slides away. Wuel and Naiv keep the other two giants busy while Zem runs over and steals it. The furious giant manages to knock her out without it, but Gnarl revives her and they manage to finish him off. The last two giants are defeated, and the grey wolves run home. The gathered onlookers welcome them into their village having proven themselves. Meet the Cobalt Wuel speaks with the chief giant. He explains that they love to hunt the metal men for sport, as does their lord, Niflung the dragon who lives in the cliffside cave on the western shore of the frozen lake. The party says that they have important business with him, and the giants send someone to ask permission. The party waits for the go ahead before venturing out to the cave on their dragonflies. Niflung is an elder Cobalt Dragon. When the party asks him to join the alliance he takes the disc as a gift and tells them to bring him a better one within a week, and then he'll join. The party goes back to the giant village somewhat disheartened that Niflung wasn't as helpful as Ormar and Alm, or as pleasant as Javanallos. The giant chief tells them that Niflung might like the head of the white dragon that lived not far away. The party sets off with the help of three giant warriors and two of their wolves. Slay the White They encounter a few wandering kobolds along the way, but within a few days they make it to the White Dragon's lair. There are droves of kobolds, but the giants keep them at bay while the party confronts the White. Wuel unleashes massive burst of fire from his ring right off. Zem tries her old dragon-backstab trick, but is quickly thrown. The dragon's minions surround her and kill her. The rest of the party slowly picks off the rest of the kobolds before focusing on the dragon. As the dragon appears nearly defeated, he swallows Naiveral, and flies out of the cave. Niav manages to finish him off from within, and they crash to the ground. The rest of the party rushes to the dragon's corpse and cut him out. They remove the dragon's head, and the giant's begin to drag it back to base as the party ressurects Zem and eventually set out for the village on their dragonflies. Commentary *SG **It was my first death. I'm beginning to feel that my character is either too reckless or I have established entirely too much aggro for a thief. Either way, I'm glad that during my sneaking attempts this time, there was actually something to hide behind. Usually I'm told, "there is nothing to hide behind." which is annoying. I have great sneaking skills and can never use them. *'DM NOTE' ** You do A LOT of damage, this is going to make people want to attack you. Im trying to be more cooperative about the sneaking. I think in the past I just wasnt prepared for someone to really try to sneak around places. *PP **I really liked the newspaper. Looking forward to more, hopefully. **The giant battle was fun. The frozen lake had a lot of potential as an interesting place to fight, with melting or broken ice. We got to play with this a bit, but it'd be fun during a longer fight, maybe with enemies using it against us also. I don't think it came up, but I think if some gets pushed or is slid they should travel farther (also fun). **Niflung has a unique personality. I thought the first meeting with him went well. I am a little confused sometimes if he's really as arrogant as he sounds or if he just plays it up to get what he wants because he knows we won't challenge him on it. **I don't know what was going on with the White, but it was odd having his entourage being so much more dangerous. Don't know if that was some stat imbalancing or just weird rolls. I would have liked to have seen some kind of recognition from the NPCs, maybe the frustrated dragon smashing down some icicles and yelling out something about an dishonorable battle interrupting his nap, or maybe the kobolds asking him what's wrong or shouting encouragement. It was a fun, dramatic ending though. *'DM NOTE:' This fight I didnt put a lot into, I really didn't expect things to turn out this way. You guys did better on your diplomacy with Niflung than I expected, and as such, got the "better" result. As for the kobolds being to strong, im not sure what happened there. They seemed to be about as strong as I wanted, the White was just puny in comparison. *RB (playing catchup here) **The White Dragon battle was cool, though I expected more tricks and traps out of kobolds. Sometimes it is nice to have a straightforward fight like this though. Loot *Official Purple Cloak (x2) *Totem of Winter's Scorn *Legendmaker Leather Armor